Into the Lair, by Kenna

One of the drawbacks of the Choose Your Own Adventure books I remember from when I was younger is that they rarely had any sort of state (though there were more complex gamebooks that did); they were simply mazes with a bit of narrative at each node. “Into the Lair” adds a bit of state and complexity to the usual hyperlink maze— not a lot, admittedly, but enough to make me think of the game as existing in a persistent world, rather than simply being a series of choices to click through.

Gameplay: The game is about adventuring through a dungeon, dealing with the occasional guards and traps as necessary. The choices made did affect the game, although they were all what one would expect in a dungeon crawl. 5/10.

Mechanics: I didn’t encounter any issues in the game, and playing it was a smooth process. I did get a bit lost at some points because of the generic location descriptions, but I was able to find my way back to the main plot just through brute force clicking. 4/10.

Presentation: The prose and setting were fairly generic, but they fit the dungeon-crawl design of the game. The descriptions were similarly a bit lackluster, but I noticed a few typos (e.g., “truely” in one of the last scenes). 4/10.

You might be interested in this game if: You like old Choose Your Own Adventure adventures and games about vampires.